After the UN Security Council passed additional sanctions against North Korea, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov agreed to continue the diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis with North Korea, according to a State Department statement. The statement also emphasized that neither Washington nor Moscow accept North Korea as a nuclear power.

Tillerson Photo Credit: EPA-EFE

The US State Department said on Wednesday that Washington and Moscow have vowed to continue the diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis with North Korea regarding its nuclear and missile programs.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed the matter over the phone earlier this week. “The two discussed concerns related to the DPRK’s destabilizing nuclear program and emphasized that neither the United States nor Russia accepts the DPRK as a nuclear power,” she said, mentioning North Korea by using the acronym for its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “Both sides agreed that they will continue to work toward a diplomatic solution to achieve a denuclearized Korean peninsula.”

Earlier this week, North Korea’s foreign minister said that the countries that support imposing new sanctions on his country will “face the consequences.” On Friday, the UN Security Council voted to toughen the sanctions on the isolated dictatorship, imposing a ban of nearly 90 percent of refined petroleum exports to the country.